Qianzhou and Zhangzhou

This week we did not have any classes as the university had arranged for us to go for a trip to other cities in the Fujian province. It was also in conjunction of the First Chinese Mushroom Days in Zhangzhou which we were invited to attend. There are 40 of us; 35 participants and 5 university staffs including a doctor who practises chinese medicine and a security guard. As I was informed by my practical teacher who went with us to take videos of our activity, 80% of Fujian province is covered with mountains while the rest is water area and flat land. There are 3 major pieces of flat land which are Fuzhou, Qianzhou and Zhangzhou. Along the highway which we traveled on, there were many tunnels. My friend, Tom, said that the army used to store firearms or explosives in the mountains during the past. Hopefully there are no more explosives in any of the mountains, otherwise China will have a 'timebomb'.

MONDAY: It took us 2 hours to reach the first city, Qianzhou. This city did not look any different from Fuzhou but there wasn't time to stop and explore as it was planned that we visit a mosque in this area only before leaving for Zhangzhou after lunch. This mosque is the first sign that Islam reached China in the past. It is not in use now for prayers but serves as a museum. The two top left corner showed a incense burner. At first I thought "eh, when did Muslims burn incense to pray?" only to find out that the incense was burned to purify the air or something like that. When we were there, we met a Singaporean old man who wanted to take picture with Tom and Herix to show the white, brown and black skin colours. Hahaha ....

After lunch at Qianzhou, we left for Zhangzhou which took another 2 hours to arrive. Once there, we checked into Zhangzhou Guesthouse. Zhangzhou is also known as a City of Flowers. There were really a lot of flowers decorating the streets and at night the city was lighted up like Christmas. I am not sure if the city is usually decorated in this way or was it because there was also an agricultural expo going on in this area.

TUESDAY: We went for an opening ceremony at the agricultural expo and haha ... my friends are the instant celebrities there. Actually everywhere we go, they are looked at and most people would ask to take pictures with them. The expo was beautifully done. In the afternoon, we visited a mushroom farm that mainly sells wood ear fungus or mu er. Some of the other mushrooms they have were grown in climate controlled rooms. I heard that it took about RMB 2 million to build 20 rooms with climate controls in a single building. That is quite cheap if you take into account that most of these machineries needed are also manufactured in China. That day, the fun time I had was when Li Jin, Tom and me went to 'delicacy street' . We had a banquet earlier which I didn't enjoyed but my friends did (I was seated next to a table full of chain smokers). So I was quite hungry. The doctor that was with us, Yan Ling, had her relatives shown us the street. We bought mutton kebabs, cakes, duck wings and sugar cane drinks and ate in my room.

WEDNESDAY: Today we left Zhangzhou for Xiamen. But before that we have to attend the seminar presentations. What I must really complained is that if the presenter is presenting in Mandarin language, the slides should have information in Chinese and English then at least most of us won't sit there like idiots. The afternoon lectures were better because we get to see the mushroom technology that was used in Europe, particularly Holland and oh cos the organisers finally got someone to translate the Chinese presentation to English for us. Unfortunately we have to leave during the DVD presentation. Here is where I did an embarrassing thing. Tom and I did not know that the staff had passed a note telling us to leave one by one. So we thought it wouldn't be nice if all 35 of us leave together. So I stood up and make a speech to absent all of us from the presentation. I felt quite paiseh after that. But hai ... at least I did a polite thing instead of leaving the presenter thinking that we did not enjoyed his presentation which was good by the way. =D